


this is how to run through the shell of a city

by notquiteaghost



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's too early on a Tuesday morning in the too-quiet mess hall, and every so often, lightning flashes and casts everything in bright, brilliant shadows. Even without the lightning, Grantaire's cheekbones look like someone has been sharpening them with a knife. Even without the rain, Jehan can hear drumming on the roof, but Tuesday is Tuesday and psychosis is an old friend and Grantaire has tattoos that Jehan wants to taste, so all is not lost. </p><p>All is never lost, even now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is how to run through the shell of a city

**Author's Note:**

> title is from [the desert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYPIccqTvSw) by carrie rudzinski. also, it's used ironically.
> 
> this is what i get from 'futuristic'. i am a pessimist at heart; the future doesn't have hover boards, it has nuclear winters.

There's ink, jagged across Grantaire's skin like a scar. Jehan doesn't know the meaning behind it, just that it looks like it hurt. Like the bruise on Grantaire's jaw, the shadows under his eyes, the bitter edge to his smile, and everything single word that comes tumbling out of his mouth, it looks like it hurt. It looks like it killed. 

Jehan doesn't know many people he wants to know more about. Times like these, everyone is starving, content with the scraps. But Jehan wants Grantaire like he wants a three course meal. Jehan wants to devour him. 

Somehow, looking at the pain etched into Grantaire like the grooves on a record, Jehan doesn't think he'd mind. 

It's too early on a Tuesday morning. It's always too early, right up until it's too late, but it's only Tuesday sometimes. Tuesday isn't Monday, a point in it's favour, but this Tuesday has brought with it the rain. 

It's too early on a Tuesday morning in the too-quiet mess hall, and every so often, lightning flashes and casts everything in bright, brilliant shadows. Even without the lightning, Grantaire's cheekbones look like someone has been sharpening them with a knife. Even without the rain, Jehan can hear drumming on the roof, but Tuesday is Tuesday and psychosis is an old friend and Grantaire has tattoos that Jehan wants to taste, so all is not lost. 

All is never lost, even now. 

"My granddad used to tell stories, about the rain." Grantaire says, between forkfuls of breakfast. He eats like it pains him. Jehan wants to ask if his throat is scarred, if he tried to breathe in lightning, if it tasted as good as it looks. But he doesn't. Instead, he bites his tongue and lets Grantaire do the talking. "Said it didn't always burn. Said you used to be able to dance in it. Said it used to make the flowers grow."

"And rain will make the flowers grow." Jehan sings, half under his breath. "My mother sang me that lullaby. I asked, but she didn't know what it meant."

"Imagine a world with grass," Grantaire says. He sounds like he's reciting something. "Imagine parks and fields and flowers, in flowerbeds and plant pots and between the cracks in the paving slabs. Food that doesn't come out of a can. No curfews, no quarantines. Freedom to go outside whenever you want."

Jehan grins. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, so he widens it. Breakfast is almost over, and soon he'll lose Grantaire to the kitchens and he'll lose himself to the letters and the rain might stop but the drumming noise won't. And tomorrow, Grantaire will still have tattoos like scars and Jehan will still not ask about them and breakfast will still taste like the metal of the can it came in. 

Even now, all is not lost.

\---

Enjolras doesn't know much of intimacy, but he knows intimately of loss.

All is not lost, as Jehan likes to say. Jehan likes to say a lot of things. He has mantras, mottos, philosophies. Sometimes, it feels like he's more of a skipping record than an actual person. Sometimes, he sits cross-legged in the middle of a room and recites poetry for hours, and hours, and hours, until his voice is hoarse and his eyes are unfocused and everyone else is more than a little unnerved and the rain has stopped. 

All is not lost, Enjolras knows. But, sometimes, he needs to be reminded, because sometimes, it damn well feels like it.

That's probably why Jehan is all about repetition. They've lost the flowers and they've lost the food and they're losing their minds, but maybe, maybe, maybe if they just keep saying it, over and over and over, they won't lose the words, too.

People don't live long, that's the problem. They don't live long, and they always get sick, and there's never any medicine, and then it rains. It always, always rains, and then they die. That's just how it is.

Enjolras wants to change things, but he doesn't know how. You can't overthrow Mother Nature. You can't rebuild when all you've got to work with is carbon monoxide and ash. You can't call it oppression when the upper class is extinct and money is extinct and everyone is dying at the exact same rate. Enjolras listens to Grantaire's stories of flowers, hears the bitterness in his voice and pretends that it doesn't sting, watches his friends slowly crumble into ash around him and pretends it doesn't hurt, doesn't ache, doesn't kill.

They've lost the flowers. They've lost the food. They're losing their minds.

But they've still got each other.

Right now, Grantaire is staring out the window they're not supposed to have and rubbing a hand over his chest like that will do anything to help the ache there, but at least he's breathing. Jehan is curled in a ball on Grantaire's bed, and he hasn't moved in hours, he hasn't said a word in hours, he hasn't smiled in days, and Grantaire keeps sending worried glances in his direction, but at least he's breathing. At least they're both breathing, at least they're warm, at least they have each other. Courfeyrac and Gavroche are asleep, Gavroche tucked into Courfeyrac's side, and from the look on their faces, they're dreaming, and from the look on their faces, Enjolras doesn't want to know what they're dreaming about, but at least they're still breathing. 

Right now, everyone Enjolras cares about is within arms reach, within hearing range, within the land of the living. Everyone Enjolras still cares about, because it's pointless to care about the dead. He doesn't have enough energy. Not now, not later, not ever. Right now, he feels like he's dying. He always feels like he's dying. 

Right now, it's Too Late AM on a Thursday, and outside it's raining, and inside it's far too quiet. They're not meant to be able to hear the rain, they're not meant to know it's raining, that's half the point of this damn building, but Enjolras can still hear it. Enjolras can always hear it. A quiet, invasive drumming noise, like the rain is landing directly onto his head, onto his skin, into his mind. He can feel his thoughts burning, not that makes any sense. Not that much of any of what he feels makes any sense anymore.

He hears the rain and feels nostalgic. He hears Jehan crying and feels guilty, feels hopeless, feels powerful, feels like he's being unraveled at the seams. He hears Grantaire laugh, an ugly and bitter and broken thing, and feels indescribably fond. He hears the rain and feels like he's burning.

Enjolras doesn't know much of intimacy, but he knows intimately of loss. Of madness. Of captivity and stale air and lightning strikes and crying.

But at least they're still breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> i am [here](http://idoubtthereforeimightbe.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
